An embarrassing epiphany

[kestrell]

I spent 2020 updating my computer skills--I'm currently on my sixth and seventh online course, and I took about a dozen webinars--and I've been mostly receptive to new apps and new ways of doing things.

But I have this one, er, blind spot.

Whenever the first set of instructions is to go to the Windows search or Jaws search, I resist.

I cut my teeth on Windows '95 (which was really just DOS with a thin veneer of a GUI over it) and Unix, and there is still this idea in the back of my mind that old school users have a zillion keyboard commands memorized and don't need no stinkin' search.

Then a few seconds ago, it hit me.

I am *that guy*.

I am that guy who would rather waste an hour or two, wandering around lost, thinking, "No, wait, this is beginning to look familiar...," rather than pull over and ask for directions on how to get there.

F***,

Comments

Insight for the win!

[jesse_the_k]

Congrats on a useful realization!

I'm really happy that search is so ubiquitous now because there's no chance I'd remember the location, for example, of "accept Touch ID for App Store payments" among the more than 1500 iOS settings. Apple kindly presents search as the first choice in the settings list. In addition to the command-line driven Spotlight system wide search in Macs, there's a nifty free utility called EasyFind which offers the scores of search limiters as menu options. https://www.devontechnologies.com/apps/freeware

I bet someone has made a similarly wonderful tool for Windows.

Re: Insight for the win!

[kestrell]

Right. Part of my recent revelation was that both Windows and Jaws are so complex, even expert users need the search app to locate things like that one setting about thousands of settings, and that is just the Windows settings.